The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
For communication systems, pairing in general is the act of grouping two or more entities together for various purposes such as establishing a dedicated communication channel, building a trust relationship, and authenticating/identifying each other. One of the entities can be referred to as a pairing entity and the other referred to as an electronic resource. The pairing entity can be a physical electronic device or a human being which seeks to establish a communication channel or trust relationship with the electronic resource. The electronic resource can be one or more physical electronic devices and may be connected to one or more data networks.
With the ongoing evolution towards an all connected world, there are exponentially growing demands for interactions between humans and electronic devices, and between electronic devices. Pairing is in many cases a primary way for starting such interactions, and it thus is desirable to provide pairing processes that balance demands for human interface simplicity and communication security.
Various approaches for entity pairing which may be relevant to the present disclosure are discussed below.
In one approach, a user operated electronic device (pairing entity) is paired to an electronic resource, such as a point-of-transaction terminal (e.g., sales terminal, product information kiosk, etc.). A user may, for example, operate a mobile communication terminal to pair with a product information kiosk to establish a dedicated communication channel for retrieving product information, which may be personalized for the user (recommendations, advertisements, electronic coupons). The pairing process may include the user running a barcode scanner application on the mobile communication terminal to scan a 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional barcode (e.g., Quick Response (QR) matrix code), to communicate the scanned information to the product information kiosk to control pairing with the mobile communication terminal.
In another approach, pairing is controlled between a human (pairing entity) and a Web resource. To prevent an automated software agent from maliciously accessing Web resources, a challenge-response based scheme called CAPTCHA has become widely used. CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used to confirm that a human is generating a pairing request. The pairing process usually includes an electronic device (e.g., a Web page server) asking a user to complete a test which the electronic device is able to generate and grade. For example, before a Web resource is provided to a user, a Web page displays a distorted image of letters and/or digits, and requires the user to correctly type the letters or digits. Because electronic devices are assumed to be unable to properly identify the distorted image without human assistance, a correctly entry is presumed to have been generated by a human. Only after the correct letters/digits are entered, does the electronic device make the Web resource accessible to the user.
In another approach, pairing is controlled between a human and an electronic terminal (e.g., mobile phone) using a pass-code/draw-pattern. A terminal can allow users to lock the terminal to prevent unauthorized use. To unlock the terminal, a user either enters a predefined pass-code or draws a predefined pattern on a touch-screen or touchpad of the terminal (e.g., connecting a group of dots through finger movements).
In another approach, pairing is controlled between two electronic terminals responsive to bumping the devices together. With the “bump” application running on the terminals, users can bump together the terminals to cause pairing with establishment of a communication channel for sharing content or conducting transactions.
Various operational challenges may arise when attempting to use one or more of these approaches for entity pairing. Regarding barcode scanning, usability of the process depends upon taking an accurate picture of the entire barcode, which can require the user to position the terminal facing and a particular distance from the barcode. Lightning can have an impact as well, because insufficient lighting on the barcode and/or reflections on the terminal display can make it difficult or not possible to accurately scan the barcode. Pairing is prevented until a properly scanned image of the barcode is obtained and a complete match is identified.
Regarding CAPTCHA, Web sites are making the challenges harder to be electronically recognized, which results in ever increasing levels of reading difficulty for humans. When a user enters incorrect letters/digits, a new challenge is displayed, and the process of interpretation has to be repeat until all correct letters/digits are entered.
These and other operational challenges can delay the pairing process, reduce accuracy of the pairing process, and frustrate users. Consequently, these approaches to entity pairing may result in unacceptable user experiences. Users may abort pairing because of the frustration and/or delay caused by hard-to-read challenges, hard-to-scan barcodes, and repetition of failed process steps.